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Katie let out a breath.
The video faded to black.
Chapter Three
Wil piled her plate with German potato salad, some kind of sausage that was in an electric skillet on the buffet table with a lot of apples, those sliced cucumbers in the white dill dressing stuff, and three of Diana Price’s giant soft rolls, which she dragged across a plate that held three sticks of room-temp butter rather than bothering to cut off a portion with the butter knife.
She was going to find a good spot and smash this food so hard.
Wil surveyed the Prices’ truly ginormous living room. Katie had purchased this place for them several years ago in a tony new development on the east side of Green Bay. Wil worked for the agency that insured the Prices, so she had a good idea of what she was looking at. She’d actually recently come out here in her role as an adjuster to document where a tree branch had taken out a corner of their new LeafGuard gutters on the four-car garage.
There was a trio of forest-green oversized chairs by the front windows, and Wil went to claim one near her mother, snagging an overstuffed pillow to put on her thighs, drape her napkin over, and make a tray for her food so it would be closer to her mouth. She speared a piece of sausage, kabob’d it with a chunk of potatosalad, and stuffed the whole thing in, closing her eyes. “Fuck, that is so good.”
“Wil, Jesus Pete!” Beanie poked her hard in the shoulder. She was smaller and scrappier than Wil, but otherwise they were a mother-daughter copy-paste. “Try something other than pure Neanderthal. I’m not even asking for manners at this point, just basic human behavior.” Beanie knifed and forked her own piece of sausage and took a bite. “Fuck. Thatisso good. What the hell does Diana put in this?”
“Even if you knew,” Wil said, “you couldn’t replicate it.”
Beanie pointed her fork at Wil. “Don’t I know it. And yet you grew to adulthood.”
“God bless Marie Callender,” Wil and her mother said in unison.
Wil surveyed the room. She knew a lot of the people, most of them old friends or work colleagues of the Prices. She’d been to a version of this event a lot of times as a kid. “So I’ve been meaning to ask you, what made Diana decide to get back in the holiday party game? With Katie visiting, I thought the policy was strictly no guests when Katie’s home, forever and ever, amen.”
“Mmm.” Beanie finished chewing. “Katie’s idea, apparently. She’s hoping to be home for almost a month instead of a short visit. Diana didn’t want so many people here, but I got the sense Katie gave her a guest list and insisted.” Beanie looked at Wil significantly.
Wil applied herself to her plate, skipping her mom’s scrutiny. If Beanie was implying that Katie had wanted Wil here, and wanted her here for some reason Wil had access to, in the hope that Wil would tell Beanie what that reason was, Wil could not help her mother.
Of course, if what Beanie wanted was for Wil to confess thatshe was glad she’d made Katie’s guest list, and that she’d given herself goose bumps wondering if this meant she and Katie would talk to each other or somehowconnect,Beanie would have to live without that satisfaction. Wil would never confess such a thing to Beanie, which Beanie must know, since she had known Wil from literal birth.
Wil looked around the room, considering each of the guests again from the angle of knowing Katie had requested their attendance. There was no one else even close to Wil’s age. This was a room full of Diana and Craig Price’s oldest friends and—judging by all the blond in the room—most trusted relatives. No one else Wil and Katie had known in high school. Just Wil.
She had been thinking about Katie noticing her at the Chicago event for days. Now she was finding out Katie had especially invited her tonight.
“You’re thinking.” Beanie softly kicked her. “You’re making thinking face.”
Thinking facewas what Beanie had called it when Wil’s dad dropped into the depths of his own head, sometimes for long minutes at a time. The memory made Wil’s throat catch, so she focused her attention on her dinner roll, refusing to blink until the threat of having feelings in front of her mom had subsided. “I’m eating and not talking. It doesn’t mean I’m thinking.”
Beanie laughed. “It’s hilarious that you’re still trying to dodge me like this, like I have just fallen off the turnip truck.”
“I thought that saying involved a potato truck.”
Beanie furrowed her brows like she was trying to remember, then kicked Wil again. “Don’t distract me. Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
“Where’s Katie?”
It was a question Wil had asked a million times when she was with Beanie, and Beanie was with Diana, and Wil—dying ofboredom—was trying to figure out if she could play with Katie as a survival strategy.
Not that there was anything wrong with playing with Katie, it was more that Katie was always off doing her own thing. Reading a book in her room. At a voice lesson. Practicing piano.
Wil had played softball or volleyball or had cheer camp in the summer. She relentlessly pursued straight As and otherwise favored sedentary pursuits. Streaming shows, video games, computers, food, music.
They hadn’t been, in any way, the same type of kid, which was why Beanie and Diana had given up matchmaking their friendship before they hit middle school.
“She’s here somewhere,” Beanie said. “She got in Saturday night. She had to get her cats settled into the suite downstairs.”
“There’sa reason to have a shitload of money. I could take Almond Butter anywhere.” Wil’s cat was sixteen and the primary recipient of Wil’s expendable income in the form of consistent, high-quality geriatric vet care.
“You have plenty of money,” Beanie said. “Enough that you could buy yourself a place like a grown-up. Hell, you could buy the place you live in now and keep the housemates. Or get a new car. Your dad would roll over in his grave if he knew you were still driving that Bronco.”